House and Garden 
DOOR GRILLE IN THE PALAZZO BRANCOLI BUSDRAGHI, 
LUCCA, XVI CENTURY 
gaping wide, dominates the whole. Interesting, 
finally, is the hanner holder of the Palazzo Finetti 
that we reproduce. Slender in shape and executed 
with precision, it is a more or less faithful reproduc¬ 
tion of the famous bronze banner holder of the 
Palazzo del Magnifico. 
It is time, however, that we turned our steps to the 
Pal azzo Puhblico and, halting for awhile at the foot 
of the historic belfry, la Mangia, observe the simple 
yet interesting grille that protects the tabernacle of 
the external chapel. Each quatrefoil, adorned with 
small bars that foliate into trefoils—of which I 
spoke before—is enclosed separately in thick, quad¬ 
rangular bars of iron, while the inevitable twisted cord 
winds all around it, furnishing an elegant finish. 
But let us ascend the stairway to the first 
floor and enter the room called Mappamondo, 
glorious for its history and famous for its 
frescoes. On the left is a railing which un¬ 
questionably can take the post of queen as 
the finest in Tuscany. Those who are artists 
at heart will certainly stop to admire the suave 
harmonies of color and line. The rich chest¬ 
nut hue of this centuries’ old iron and the 
soft tints of the frescoed walls blend softly 
into one another, while the screen seems grad¬ 
ually to take on the aspect of a fine lacework, 
th rough which, in the quiet penumbra, the 
painted saints return to life. Let us go closer 
to this screen and study it more minutely. 
1 he design was furnished by that gracious 
artist, Jacopo della Quarcia in 1434, and the 
execution, at first entrusted to Maestro Nic- 
colo di Paolo, was finished only ten years 
later by Giacomo da Giovanni di Vito and 
Giovanni, his son, both Sienese blacksmiths. 
Each compartment consists of nine squares, 
and in the space left between quatrefoil and 
quatrefoil a graceful floral pattern has been 
introduced. The frieze, which has been 
justly compared to a rich embroidery, con¬ 
sists of fourteen panels, all different, in 
which twine acanthus, vine, thistles, and 
passion flowers, encircling either the emblem 
of Siena or the wolf, the arms and emblem of 
the Sienese republic. On the cornice, care¬ 
fully finished, rise alternate bunches of roses 
and ears of wheat, not treated convention¬ 
ally, although with a certain realism, as well 
as spikes and plates supported by oak leaves. 
In short, a marvellous ensemble for delicacy 
of workmanship and perfection as regards 
harmony of design, proportion and elegance. 
Graceful in its severe simplicity is also the 
fanlight of the Palazzo Stasi, composed of 
oblique crossed bars, held together solidly 
by nails with star-shaped heads, and by a 
supplementary ornament of little Gothic 
arches hanging under the base of the semicircle. 
It is not merely the beauty of this object with 
its energetic outlines that makes us appreciate it 
so much, but, rather, the reflection that the char¬ 
acter and the love of beauty of that epoch sought to 
make a work of art, and a monument of objects that 
we should content ourselves with making pretentious 
and of brief duration. Very decorative are the 
typical gratings of thick twisted bars [passate a 
occhio) which secure light to nearly all the Sienese 
edifices. 
Interesting, too,, is a railing of the Palazzo del 
Diavolo, of quatrefoils enclosed in quatrefoils, with 
some panels of sestofoils and with a frieze in six 
equal compartments, a sixteenth century production. 
IN THE PALAZZO ORSETTI, LUCCA, XVI CENTURY 
170 
